Kayseri Mantı

Mantı is made across Turkey and Central Asia, but Kayseri's version is defined by size: the dough is rolled very thin, cut into small squares, and each is pinched around a pinch of spiced minced lamb or beef into a dumpling perhaps a centimetre across. The traditional measure, quoted everywhere in the city, is that forty should fit on a single spoon - a test once applied to prospective daughters-in-law, and a story told so often it has become the dish's identity. They are boiled and served under a thick garlic yogurt with melted butter reddened with paprika and dried mint poured over, and sometimes sumac. Making them is slow, communal work, and households produce large batches to dry and store. Kayseri's mantı houses do them properly; the city also sells them frozen everywhere, and the frozen ones from Kayseri are what people elsewhere in Turkey buy. Portion sizes are generous and the dish is heavier than it looks.

What you'll find

• The tiny dumplings - the forty-on-a-spoon size.
• The yogurt and butter - garlic yogurt under paprika butter.
• The hand-pinching - the slow work of folding each one.
• The mantı houses - Kayseri restaurants doing little else.

When to go

Year-round; lunch and dinner. Kayseri's specialist houses are the place - the frozen version sold nationwide is decent but not the same.

Practical notes

It is rich and filling despite the small dumplings - portions defeat people. Garlic in the yogurt is assertive. Versions elsewhere in Turkey are often larger and coarser.

Nearby

Kayseri's covered bazaar and Seljuk monuments are in the centre; Mount Erciyes is south of the city.